


Broken Spirits

by burning_nova



Series: Kinkmeme Fills [39]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Domestic Violence, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-08
Packaged: 2018-03-21 11:25:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3690474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burning_nova/pseuds/burning_nova
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been a few years since Phil has had a drink. For good reason. </p><p>Then someone slips him a something at a party. </p><p>Phil Coulson is a mean drunk. </p><p>That's the nicest way of describing him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Phil Coulson knows how he is while drunk. He is not a nice man at best. At worst he is violent. Or at least he was before he gave it up. Because the last time Clint ended up with a broken nose and a sprained wrist (because it made him how many of the black eyes Clint sported that he waved off in the morning-after hangovers were his fault.). Because he didn't want to hear the words "At least we don't have kids." in that too serious manner when Clint meant to deflect his concerns with a joke. It hasn't been easy but after counseling and Phil's dedication sobriety they're doing fine. 
> 
> Then someone slips him a something at a party. 
> 
> Phil Coulson is a mean drunk. That's the nicest way of describing him.

Clint smiled as Natasha tripped on the hem of her dress. She had trusted the people around her enough to drink a bit. Clint downed the rest of his coke and moved to help her up. She was draped over Steve in a manner Clint wasn’t sure was meant to be aggressive or friendly. As he got closer he noted that it was friendly. Steve’s cheeks were turning pink in response to something she had said. She waved off his help even as he escorted her to a seat.

He scanned the room, looking for Phil. He was surprised when an arm wrapped itself around him and pulled him close. “Mmm, baby.” Phil breathed into Clint’s neck as he came up behind him. “Where have you been all evening?”

Clint’s emerging smile fell at the smell that wafted to his nose. Clint immediately looked toward Phil's right hand next to him; he tried not to tense when he spotted the glass of amber liquid. “Phil, Phil, what are you drinking?”

“Scotch.” Phil breathed as he kissed the nape of his neck. “It’s good. Remind me to get some tomorrow.”

“Phil, we-we talked about it this… Why are you-we shouldn’t drink?” Fuck he was getting nervous because Phil was sweet before he got rough, if he was sweet at all. His transition to inebriation would normally involve Phil turning surly and his mood turning more sour as the kept drinking. “It’s been years.” 

The arm around him tightened painfully and he knew he shouldn’t have said that. Phil shoved him away and downed the rest of the scotch in his glass. His eyes, oddly clear and red rimmed, glared daggers at him. “I’m a fucking grown adult, Clint. I’ll drink if I damn well want to.” Clint saw a few people glance at him. 

He couldn’t let Phil’s reputation get ruined. Fuck. Clint smiled. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” Phil’s nostrils flared. 

“Why do you always apologize?” He hissed. Clint’s smiled waned. He resisted the urge to say ‘I’m sorry.” again. "It's just one drink. I'll be fine."

One? Maybe he could salvage this night and Phil would just pass out at home or convince him that he wanted sex. Clint could do sex. They'd talk about it in the morning.

He licked his lips. “Why don’t we go home then baby?” He said. "Maybe we can have some fun. When's the last time we had some good drunk sex?" He couldn’t believe the words were coming out of his mouth. Phil smiled again but there was a hint of a sneer in his expression.

“Yeah, we can go home.” Fuck-fuck-fuck. Phil had had more than one drink, he must of. Clint knew he would be lucky to just get a black eye that night. Phil put down his cup reached for his arm. Clint flinched, which only ensured Phil’s grip was painful. “Come on.” He sneered. 

Clint sent an uneasy smile Stark’s way when he glanced over to him from next to a man Clint vaguely recognized. He wished he could convey his unease without arousing people's unwanted attention. They made their way to the private elevators before Phil socked him. His teeth snapped together as his head went back. 

Clint slid down the elevator wall. Phil glanced at him, eyes so terribly clear but expression terrifying hostile. A jolt of fear went down his spine as he realized this wasn't like before. There was something different about this.


	2. Chapter 2

It had never been like this before. 

The door gave a shudder as Phil rammed into it. Clint kept his weight against it, wishing Phil hadn't broken two fingers on his dominant hand. His heart was pounding, current terror and recalled childhood fear had reduced him to uselessness. The door shook again and Clint tried to connect with one of the others with his cell.

If that door went down he was a dead man. Phil would beat him to death. On any given day he was evenly matched against Natasha and exceeded most humans. At the moment that mattered nothing, he wasn’t Barton, Hawkeye or any kind of man ready for combat. Right now he was Clint, his mother's son who, like her, took a hit and stayed down. 

He managed to dial Steve. The phone rang. Come on! He thought as he struggled to breath with what he hopes are just bruised ribs. 

"Clint." Phil had hissed, so fucking angry that it made Clint realize something was wrong as Phil broke took his hand and twisted in ways that made the world turn bright with pain. Pain and focus on the anger Phil had never once shown even at his drunkest. A wrongness that allowed the man who was Hawkeye break Phil's grip and run to safety before Clint returned. 

"Rogers." He heard and almost cried in relief. 

"Steve! My room now! Coulson is compromised." 

“What?” Steve said as he moved. 

“Hurry.” He disconnected. Phil had gone quiet. Clint finally turned the lock and sighed in relief at the moment’s break. It also reminded him that Phil had access to their weapons. 

“Clint, who did you call?” Phil asked, sounding so much calmer. “Come out so we can talk about this. I’m sorry.” The calm was almost convincing but Phil was a good actor as any agent and his fury had ebbed and surged during the beating. If Phil were just drunk he would go out but he wasn’t. 

Clint understood Phil when he was drinking and could take a punch or two. This wasn’t drunk Phil, not even at his worst when he had sprained Clint’s wrist. This Phil left him petrified. This Phil was not the man he loved, the man who had spent weeks at rehab and counseling for him. 

Clint prayed he wasn’t. 

His mouth tasted like blood. He didn’t want to answer. Feared both answering and not. “Phil.” He said without any conviction. “Okay.” He didn’t move. Where was Steve?

The door slammed open as if his thought were a herald, he heard Stark curse. “Jesus, the blood.” His nose had bled a lot.

“Stark, Rogers.” Coulson greeted almost normal. “What are you doing here?”

“Where’s Clint?” Rogers demanded, sounding worried. 

“You came for Clint? He’s fine.” 

“Coulson.” Steve began. Whatever drug had compromised Phil surged again. Clint heard scuffling. Tony yelled in pain and someone was thrown. 

“Inject him, damn it!” Tony yelled. Then it was quiet. 

“Clint!” Stark called and Clint exited the bathroom. Phil was unconscious. He grimaced at the sight before him. He had bled a lot in one spot and the bathroom door was battered. It was well made so it had withheld Phil’s barrage. 

He hadn’t remembered when the lamp broke or the poster frame. Shit, Phil was going to get upset about that. That poster was vintage.

“Fuck. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Clint replied out of habit he thought forgotten. “I will be. Look, get Phil to SHIELD medical he was drugged. It has to be analyzed as quickly as possible before his system metabolizes it.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going local under an alias. SHIELD can’t know what he did. It’ll look bad.”

“Clint, if he was drugged what does it matter?” Rogers asked as he began to lift Phil and place him on the couch. Stark seemed to realize something. 

“It’s not the first time he’s hit you.” Clint couldn’t meet his eyes. “Christ. They know too.”

“Look. I know what I have and this isn’t normal even when he hit me, okay? Phil doesn’t do that anymore.”

“You were talking about adoption. He hits you and you want to drag kids into it?” 

“Fuck you!” Clint snarled and he knew he couldn’t look pretty with one eye swollen and mouth red with blood. “You don’t know anything. He hasn’t hurt me in a long time! He-he stopped. It was the alcohol and he stopped for me. All right? And I want a family.” Steve said nothing but was calling an ambulance off to the side though he clearly disapproved. 

“Right because the beatings are less worse when there’s more to go around.” Clint lunged at Tony. Tony avoided him easily and subdued him. “You’re going in. That’s final.”

“No.”

“Yes.” Rogers ordered. “If what you’re saying is true then it’s nothing that should reflect badly on Coulson. It’s not just you he tried to attack. He attacked Tony and me. That’s not normal.” Clint struggled to take a breath and watched as Natasha stormed in. Her expression was shocked then passive. 

Clint felt sick and shamed. 

There was a reason he never judged his mom when he thought about her. 

He was just like her. 

He went with them. 

He had his own private room, isolated. As isolated as any public room in SHIELD could be. He still heard the whispers of the nurses and doctors. The gleeful chimes of agents still bitter from his actions under Loki.

Splintered fingers and iced ribs. He waited. Steve came a few hours later. The test was positive. Phil had been drugged. 

The relief didn’t remove the lingering terror that night. Instead he focused. He shed Clint’s weaknesses and became Agent Barton. He had a mission now: Find who had poisoned, Phil.

He slept fitfully in medical. He dreamed of stale liquor and pain. When he awoke Phil was at his side. He looked terrible. 

“Clint.” The relief at the concern was poignant. This was his Phil. “I’ll find who did this. Who made me-“ 

Clint shook his head. “Phil, it wasn’t your fault.” It wasn’t. Phil hadn’t drunk voluntarily. Wouldn’t hurt him like that even at his worse. 

“Natasha made it clear what would happen if I hurt you again.”

“They all know.” 

“Yes.” Phil reached for him. Clint flinched. Clint closed his eyes.

“I think we need time apart.” 

“I understand. Whatever you decide, I love you, no matter what.” Clint nodded. So much work had been unraveled and his dirty laundry aired. He heard Phil leave.

Mission. Think of the mission and he could focus on healing again. 

They both could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts?


	3. Chapter 3

Clint wanted to focus on the mission, only to be completely denied.

“Excuse my language, but what the fuck sir?” He demanded of Fury. “I’m needed.”

“Are you kidding me, agent? You are too close to this mission. Not to even mention you’re in no condition to help.”

“Kindly fuck off, sir.”

“I’m going to let that slide because my third in command beat you in a drug induced rage.” He paused. “Again.” The stern stare was met with Clint’s glare. “Do we have to go back several years ago, Barton? Do we need to bring in counselors and reassign you to another handler, permanently this time?”

“You wouldn’t.” Clint gasped and his rage at the situation reared itself at once. “Phil was drugged. He didn’t do it on purpose! I’m not a wilting fucking wallflower anymore. I need this mission.”

“I could three cracked ribs, two broken fingers, and one broken nose against your wilting flower argument.” He shook his head. “Fact is he was compromised and until I know he’s not going to hit the bottle again because of it I don’t want you two around each other.”

“Rehab.” He snarled.

“Yes. Phil’s agreed to go after this mission is over.”

“Why is he heading it?”

“He’s not but he’s needed in the process of identifying his attacker. Stay out of it, Barton. That’s final and if you try to join I’ll suspend your ass for a month without pay.” Clint snarled and sat back down on his bed. Fucking fuck. 

He texted Natasaha. ‘I’m stonewalled from the mission. Keep me in touch?’ Natasha did not reply. He watched from the sidelines and felt useless. His anger boiled and simmered, unable to find an outlet during the weeks long venture. 

He snuck and learned what he could. A week after attacker had been identified Stark emailed him security footage of the party. Even though he was anxious to see it he was able to distance himself by pretending viewing the footage was part of a routine mission.

Everything seemed normal, he had to watch the footage three times to confirm that a slim woman ‘bumped’ into Phil. Something small shined in her hand as it made contact with the meat of his thigh during her supposed fall. Phil frowned, rubbing his leg absentmindedly. Her fingers had curled; nails digging in at the same time the needle had made contact.

No one would tell him anything and he hadn’t seen Phil since the night at medical. He only knew when they left for a confirmed HYDRA base courtesy of JARVIS. He had enough information to draw the basic conclusions - HYDRA had known about Phil’s previous alcoholism but not his mood during it. The result was Clint’s beating rather than a seemingly drugged induced confession.

The resolution left him empty. He couldn’t train and he couldn’t exert himself too much because of his ribs. Fuck. He cleaned the apartment instead, cleaned and wiped all traces of that night out of existence over the course of several days. Slow and steady. 

Phil still didn’t contact him.

The anger and fear had fallen away into a sort of dismay. He wanted his Phil and he wanted to go back to what they had, a life full of excitement, love, and the possibility of family. He almost rebroken his fingers again when he realized that Tony could blacklist them across all agencies. 

Tony didn’t care that Phil hadn’t hit him in years or that they did everything they could to make it ‘work’ (and it had worked). All he knew was that Phil hit Clint and Clint ‘let’ it happen. Fuck his life so much. It was almost as bad as when Loki had fucked him with his staff.

He texted Phil.

The reply came almost at once. ‘Cannot disclose information about the mission. Classified - Eyes Only. Hawkeye stay in the nest.’ He smiled at the last line. It was in line was enough for him. Phil would tell him what he could when he could. They had done it enough (with Natasha too) that it really should be no shock if the others found out. 

However the message also implied what it stated: Stay put. He sighed and tried to focus on a crappy movie. He didn’t hear from Phil again after the first two days. He found Phil in their apartment after he went out for groceries. It startled him more than he wanted to admit. 

Phil kept his distance. “I’m sorry for not texting you but they can’t know I’m here.”

“Who?” He asked. Phil gestured the floors above and below him. He scowled and winced as it strained his nose. Phil looked away. “Damn it. Phil.” He sighed. “We need to get through this but damn it, if they’re in the way we’ll get nowhere.”

Phil nodded. “I know. They’re not fans of me at the moment. They held an intervention once we came back.” Phil sat on their couch. “I’m staying on base for the moment.”

“Fuck that. We made it work and it worked. We can do it again.” Phil was quiet. “Phil? We can make it work right?” 

“I love you, Clint. I love you so much but realizing what I did to you scared me. I don’t want to go through that again. Our lives our so dangerous, if I’m the main danger in your life what does it say about me?”

Clint walked over to him and sat on the opposite end of the couch. “I love you.” Clint said empathically. “Maybe I’m broken because of my mom but I want to stay with you Phil. You-you changed. You made our lives better by giving up drinking. You *stopped* hitting me. 

“It wasn’t just the ‘honeymoon’ period in abuse. I know what it’s like, Phil. We lived it for a while when your drinking started to get worse. It was fine most of the time but when you started to drink more because of the cluster fuck missions Fury was sending you on.   
We know this. This is a fact in our lives.”

 

“I would have killed you. I was just so angry and I didn’t know why.” Phil replied. “What if I do?”

“It’s been years since you hit me. Years! You haven’t touched alcohol or made me feel scared or even raised your hand at me when we were yelling at each other. You’re just going to throw that away?

“I’m not saying it’s perfect. I need to talk to someone, work my issues out so if you are compromised again I can actually do something. I don’t want to be my mom, Phil, and I don’t want you to be my dad. If we’re stuck there then we’ll never go anywhere. Don’t you still want that?”

“Not if I’m a danger to you.”

“And I don’t want to be in a that situation again.”

Phil swallowed thickly and answered. “We’ll work on it.” He said as if it were simple. 

“Yes. It’s going to be shit for a while but it was shit before.”

“We can do it again.” Phil said strongly. Clint smiled. 

“Yeah. First we have to talk to our friends. It’s our lives. They helped, and I’m thankful for that but they can’t dictate it.”

“No. I was so irritated when they told me I couldn’t see you. I would respect your request but their demand –“ He snarled. Clint laughed. 

“Phil, you did give me the space I needed or asked for.” Phil gave a shudder of relief. 

“That’s true.” Phil reached for him. Clint took his hand with his splintered hand. Phil slowly moved closer and kissed his hand. “You’re amazing. I don’t deserve you.” He said. 

“Well you’re stuck with me.” Phil kissed his hand again. Normally he would have squeezed his hand in appreciation.

“What if we never get good enough for kids?” Phil had always wanted to be a dad.

“We will be. If, if we don’t we’ll be that old couple with twenty dogs.” Phil laughed and his eyes were red rimmed with tears. 

Clint held him as he cried. 

Maybe he was still broken but Clint wasn’t his mom’s son in all ways. He had had the chance to heal. Clint wasn’t going let that pass him by.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if this needs more tags


End file.
